Medicine and Charity in Georgian Bath

First published in 1999, this rewarding volume offers a close and systematic analysis of the General Infirmary at Bath, which was founded in 1739 to grant `lepers and cripples, and other indigent strangers' access to the spa waters. Four main themes are pursued in order to locate the hospital within its economic, socio-cultural and political contexts: arrangements for management and finance under the conditions of a prospering commercial economy; the rewards and restrictions experienced by the physicians and surgeons who donated their professional services free of charge; and the constructions of an integrated social and political elite around the physical and moral rehabilitation of the sick poor. In this way, the example of Bath - a stylish resort whose visitors and residents exemplified the dynamic of fashionable philanthropy - is used to open up issues of significance to our understanding of Georgian Britain as a whole.